This study aims to substantiate the general ancient ‘scientific’ interest of the natural phenomena and popular beliefs Plutarch discusses in his physical problems. Plutarch does not intend to verify these mirabilia in an empirical fashion. He is not so much looking for the ὅτι but more for the διὰ τί in nature. It remains to be seen whether he investigates and ‘believes’ these natural phenomena only for reasons of intellectual exercise, then. They at least receive Plutarch’s benefit of the doubt, (...) which ties in closely with his ‘sceptical’ stance in natural scientific affairs, mediating between unreasoned belief and disbelief of natural mirabilia. The idea that wonder remains immanent in nature is an essential aspect of Plutarch’s general world view and (natural) philosophy. This view is based on a philosophical conviction that nature has a divine teleology. In connection with Platonic ontology and epistemology Plutarch generally accepts, moreover, that no firm knowledge can be attained from natural phenomena, because they are immanently obscure and uncertain, and cannot grant any evident cognition. (shrink)

The Natural Problems, attributed to Aristotle, have gained much scholarly attention in the last decades, yet a systematic study of how the collection circulated in the Graeco-Roman Empire remains a blind spot in contemporary scholarship. Indeed, the Imperial Era is a seminal period for the history of the text, not just as a conduit between Aristotle and the Middle Ages – which in itself is essential for explaining the subsequent Arabic and Latin uptake of the Problems more clearly – but (...) also for the wealth of sources and testimonies it offers about the collection’s ancient readership and concrete use. The evidence shows that the collection sparked much debate among a range of ancient philosophers, doctors, sophists and scholars, both Greeks and Romans. This paper provides a selection of readings representative of the different socio-intellectual milieus in which the Problems circulated and the different agendas that it served. (shrink)

The value of Plutarch’s perception of physical reality and his attitude towards the natural spectacle Plutarch was very interested in the natural world around him, not only in terms of its elementary composition and physical processes, but also with respect to its providential ordering and marvels. His writings teach us a lot about his perception of physical reality and about his attitude to the natural spectacle. He found his greatest inspiration in the ontological and epistemological framework of Plato’s Timaeus, but (...) a wide range of other authors were also of seminal interest to his project. Moreover, the highly literary value of Plutarch’s natural philosophical writings should not be underrated. It is therefore not surprising that recently scholars have started to reassess the ancient scientific value of Plutarch’s natural philosophical writings. Natural Spectaculars aims to give further impetus to this dynamic by treating several aspects of Plutarch’s natural philosophy which have remained unexplored up to now. (shrink)

ὥστε καθάπερ τοὺς ὑποκρινομένους,οὕτως ὑποληπτέον λέγειν καὶ τοὺς ἀκρατευομένους.Arist. Eth. Nic. 7.3.1147a22-4In Attic Nights 20.4, Aulus Gellius reports how his Athenian teacher, the Platonist L. Calvenus Taurus, advised one of his pupils to temper his devotion to stage actors and to turn his attention to the study of philosophy. Wishing to divert his student from associating with theatre people, Taurus assigned the daily reading of a specific chapter from Aristotle's Προβλήματα Ἐγκύκλια. He sent his student an extract from the book, (...) which Gellius quotes : ‘Why are Dionysian artists mostly worthless people?’—the problem is still extant in the Aristotelian collection of Problemata physica that came down to us. The explanation Aristotle suggested is that ‘these men are least familiar with reason and philosophy, since they devote most of their life to the necessary arts, and because they are in an intemperate state most of the time, sometimes even in difficulties, both of which conditions cause meanness ’. (shrink)

This article is devoted to Plutarch’s natural-philosophical interests and aspirations, as expressed more precisely in his collection of Quaestiones Naturales, which has been generally underestimated by scholars. In order to speculate about the actual position of this collection in the Corpus Plutarcheum, I present a case study of one particular problem, viz. Q.N. 19. In the first part of the article, the scope is primarily confined to the traditional sources on which Plutarch relies, but I also take into account Plutarch’s (...) conception of scientific innovation, as it is formulated in Quaestiones convivales. In the second part, I deal with the problematic degree of moral dynamics and literary stylistics, which are, in the main, absent from Quaestiones Naturales. I analyse a cluster of parallel passages by way of contrast to Q.N. 19. This yields insight into Plutarch’s argumentative tactics and his process of writing and rewriting, with a particular focus on his use of ὑπομνήματα. On chronological grounds, I argue that at a certain point Plutarch bears the hypomnematic material of Q.N. 19 in his topical mind, but also that there are certain indications that Q.N. 19 itself is based on other ὑπομνήματα, which in turn provides new material for speculating about the true nature of Quaestiones Naturales as a “collection of notes” and about what the actual range of this label might be. (shrink)